The image of massive fascist Ernesto Ché Guevara is absolutely fucking everywhere. A million t-shirts depicting him are sold in Camden every second, typically to the kind of grungy kid who stands around smoking and looking moody. I posit that they know little to nothing of this man’s life and works. These kids are probably alienated by their peers for being honest, tolerant and non-judgemental.

Now it’s 2009, and his visage is a global insignia, representing counter-culture and rebellion and is reproduced in many, if not all media.

But what about all the other shit he got up to, like stringing up gays?

I use YouTube a lot, and feel like the interface changes every time I visit the site on a desktop PC.

Most annoying is the way it deals with playlists: for a start, at the time of writing, there’s no obvious way to get to your playlists.

But I am referring more to the data that’s available on any part of the site. For example, the right-hand list of related videos. It currently shows a still preview, a title, the owner and the number of views. The video duration is overlaid on a corner of the still.

Elisha Dushku’s Dollhouse charachter Echo had to do exactly that for her five years’ tenure as a “doll”. It would be hard to fill a Post-It™ with things that dolls haven’t tried. The premise: beautiful but down-and-out eco-warrior Caroline is snared by Dollhouse manager Adelle de Witt and offered the chance to wipe the slate clean, in exchange for five years’ servitude as animated blow-up doll with USB port and a human brain API. Read the rest of this entry »